It’s the joke that changed history. On April 29, 2011 Donald Trump was an obnoxious clown who enjoyed the attention he got from toying with a run at the Presidency. On May 1, 2011, Donald Trump was an obnoxious clown bent on revenge against Obama, Meyers, and the political class that laughed him out of D.C. He would stop at nothing—no lie was too big enough, no amount of treason was off-limits. In fifty years someone will make another Back to the Future sequel where Doc Brown’s kids go back in time to stop Seth Meyers from telling that joke.

Lincoln gave his famous address—for my money the greatest speech ever made—on the fields of Gettysburg, at the site of a battle that turned out to be the turning point of a war for which he would be the last casualty.

It’s far more than four score and seven years since then—one hundred and fifty five, to be precise—and today we find ourselves in another civil war. This time there are no cannons, no bayonets, and no amputees. This time it’s a civil war of conscience, and it’s being fought between those who believe in truth, and those who don’t.